


Draconic, Elvish, Braids and Pinkos.

by Regina_Draconis (skele_smol)



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Braids, Comfort, Cute dorks being cute dorks, Dorks in Love, Established Rayllum, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Magic, Making Out, Romantic Fluff, elven culture, learning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27900775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skele_smol/pseuds/Regina_Draconis
Summary: “Elvish and draconic share a common tongue. So, they sound similar to each other but they translate very differently.”“Right, right.” Another twist, another ripple of light dances through her tumble of moonlight strands. Her subtle movements gift the smitten human with little alternate glimpses of the Moonshadow elf’s sharp collar and brief flashes of where her slanted ear joins her jaw and Callum is captivated. “Sooo, what kind of ritual was I invoking?”Rayla’s fingers suddenly still as she cuts her gaze toward Callum. Her lilac eyes alive and bright and glimmering over with jaunty mischief. “Weeeeell-” She drawls out the word until she catches eyes the colour of evergreens shyly lifting from their lingering at her throat. With Callum finally meeting her gaze, Rayla allows her stifled grin to finally spread over her face. And, all at once, Callum realizes that whatever he’d been trying to say is very far removed from the correct translation, and is about to bite him firmly in the ass. “What you were trying to read isn’t even a ritual really, it’s a blessing. Poetic and mystical, giving thanks to the primals. But, what you actually tried to say in draconic was something... less thankful and more… crass .”
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 76





	Draconic, Elvish, Braids and Pinkos.

**Author's Note:**

> This has taken me waaaaaay too long to write. Almost a month. It also started very differently with me simply wanting to apply a meaning to the braid that Rayla wore in season one. Just something short and cute, but then, as what tends to happen a lot for me whenever I write fics... the story developed a life of its own and ran away with me.
> 
> So enjoy unadulterated tooth-rotting fluff, banter and a little of our favorite Moonshadow elf opening up a little about her personal family traditions.
> 
> I hope you enjoy, kudos and comments are appreciated.

Draconic, Elvish, Braids and Pinkos. 

The first rays of the early morning sun fall slanting through Callum’s window while the boy in question already sits, slouched in his desk chair. His brow puckers and his eyes pinch as he pours himself into the pages, pushing away the first and pulling over a second thick tome from the pile scattered haphazardly all across the surface of the desk. Reading each passage over and over until he was almost cross-eyed while the rest of the castle slowly awakens. In his hand, a charcoal pencil hovers over a page in his sketchbook already littered with runes and trigger words scripted in a mix of both ancient draconic and elvish, adding beneath their translation in his native Katolian. Occasionally, he catches himself quietly muttering to himself, sounding out the foreign syllables and inflexions on his untrained tongue. Through, as he stumbles over the latest passage a few times, his frustration grows and his voice raises in volume, something that he is unaware of doing… 

Until Rayla’s drowsy brogue sleepily corrects his pronunciation.

“You’re putting too much emphasis on the vowel sounds, you need to soften them.” Straightening up from the nest of blankets that she had swaddled herself in, the Moonshadow elf stifles a yawn with the back of her hand. “And you need to roll your r’s more. It needs to come from the back of your throat.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Of course, of course. Ancient draconic, right?” Callum starts to twist around in his seat, intending to face the elf, until his thoughts catch up and remind him of what he’d forgotten.

Namely that last night was another night where he’d found himself awoken by the timid little tapping on his bedroom door. Another night where he had found Rayla, looking sheepishly down at her bared feet when he’d pulled the door open, immediately pushing herself into his arms. Her voice small and mumbling as she quietly muffles words of nightmares, feeling lonely and restless into his shoulder, and asking to stay with him until she’d calmed enough to sleep again.

Of course, he’d agreed and allowed her inside; happy for the excuse to curl up with her on his bed once she had arranged his pillows and blankets around herself to her liking. Though he _had_ intended to escort her back to her own room once she’d grown drowsy enough, seeing how the tension left her shoulders and how the pinched expression she had worn before entering softened tore at his heart and wavered his resolve. But it was when her eyelids had finally lowered and her ears had drooped and when she had leaned a little more heavily into his side, he abandoned that plan entirely. Instead, he had lain her back amongst the pillows and draped a light blanket over her with the intent to leave the she-elf sleeping peacefully in his bed while steeling himself with the unpleasant thought of making up a small pile of the remaining pillows and blankets on the floor to sleep on.

That had been his intent at least, but it appeared that even in her sleep, Rayla had ulterior motives and a plan of her own to foil his.

Before she had fallen asleep, tucked beneath his arm and pressed firmly against his side, Rayla had held onto his hand. Had sleepily slipped and slotted their fingers together tightly, seeking as much closeness and comfort from him as she could find. But then, before Callum could carefully gather the slip of an elf into his arms and carry her back to her own bed while she slept, both of her hands had found their way to his. Clutching his wrist and curling her body around his arm adorably, like a child would a favourite stuffed animal. Effectively trapping him into sharing the mattress with her for the night... not that he minded in the least.

But, now she was awake and moving. Her hair is adorably rumpled from the pillows as she peels back the blankets so she can stretch out the kinks and knots that had settled in her muscles and spine while she had slept. And, despite wanting to offer the she-elf her privacy as she prepares to leave the bed - _his_ bed - Callum finds his gaze drifting as far to the side as he can possibly peek, without him having to turn his head and risk drawing attention to himself. He watches her from the very corners of his eyes, his ear tips heating and cheeks flushing pink as Rayla pushes her shoulders backwards and lifts the small of her back upwards and inwards as she arches. And he winces, right alongside the she-elf, when her spine shifts and pops loudly as it realigns itself before she finally shakes out her limbs and scrambles to sit atop the sheets and blankets.

“Well, actually,” Now free of her nest, Rayla sits taller, more erect upon his bed. With her legs crossed and head bent to the side as she combs her fingers through her tumble of hair. Her lips just barely smirking as she busies herself with neatening her sleep tousled strands. Teasing out the tangles that she finds scattered amongst the softness as well as the boy who she _knows_ is not-so-subtly watching her from his seat at the desk. “That was old elvish, not ancient draconic.”

“Oh? Really?” Callum blinks slowly as he turns back to the tome in his hands and frowns at the marks inscribed on the pages there. “Well, I guess that makes sense. I _do_ recognize some of the runes in here, but not all of the writing with them. And it didn’t quite feel right for a trigger phrase.”

Tilting her head over her other shoulder and biting down on the edge of her smile in a vain attempt to keep both her creeping grin and swelling pride at bay, Rayla draws a small section of her hair out from behind her ear. In the short few weeks since the battle at the Storm Spire Callum had thrown himself into his study of the sky arcanum. Spending hours, late at night, scouring the libraries for possible grimoires and translating the foreign texts into the common tongue. And, sometimes, she would help him too. Offering the limited knowledge she had of the language of the dragons, and learning some new words herself as they both stumbled over the scripts by the flickering candle-light. “Those are instructions for a special Elven ritual. Sort of like a power-up for strengthening your connection to a specific arcanum. Sometimes they can even make a few spells easier to perform.”

The Moonshadow elf pauses and slants her gaze toward the neophyte mage. Blinking in surprise when she realizes that Callum, now turned to face her, is not quite listening to what she says. Instead, she notices that he’s far more enthralled by simply watching the way that her quick fingers separate one section of hair into three and how she smooths down the fly-away strands between the pads of her thumbs and index fingers. She also notices that with every twist of her wrists and with every new fold of the braid that she weaves, the dopey smile on his face grows even more prominent and, somehow, even more hopeless. Suddenly shy, she drops her eyes to stare just past the boy rather than at him, her lashes fluttering to half-mast as she adds. “Elvish and draconic share a common tongue. So, they sound similar to each other but they translate very differently.” 

“Right, right.” Another twist sends another ripple of light dancing through her tumble of moonlight strands. Her subtle movements gift the smitten human with little alternate glimpses of the Moonshadow elf’s sharp collar and brief flashes of where her slanted ear joins her angled jawline and Callum is captivated. “Sooo, what kind of ritual was I invoking?”

Rayla’s nimble fingers suddenly still as she cuts her gaze toward Callum. Her lilac eyes alive and bright and glimmering over with jaunty mischief. “Weeeeeell…” She drawls out the word until she catches eyes the colour of evergreen forests shyly lifting from their lingering at her throat. With Callum finally meeting her gaze, Rayla allows her stifled grin to finally spread over her face, wide and open and untempered. And, all at once, Callum realizes that whatever he’d been trying to say is very far removed from the correct translation, and is about to bite him firmly in the ass. “What you were _trying_ to read isn’t even a ritual really, it’s a blessing. Poetic and mystical and giving thanks to the primals. But, what you actually tried to say in draconic was something... less thankful and more… _crass_.”

“Oh, no. Oh no, no, no, no.” The realisation of what he may have said causes Callum’s words to catch painfully in his throat. Horrified and so very far beyond the realm of simple embarrassment, the boy mage’s moss coloured eyes snap wide and pleading as they fall to the elf. Mortification flushes his cheeks a deeper shade of pink and his ear tips burn a red so rich they’re bordering scarlet, and there’s a scorching burn that nips behind his eyes races all the way from his face to boil in the very pit of his belly. He splutters on his humiliation and chokes on his apologies until his voice escapes his throat in a meek little whimper. “I… I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

The mischief that had perked Rayla’s lips and danced wildly in her eyes softens and she pauses in her braiding to take pity on her beloved’s discomfort. “Oh, calm down, Callum. I’m only teasing.” She releases her hold on the half-woven braid, unconcerned that the neat folds loosen and sag limply against her ear and smiles sweetly when the boy is bold enough to nervously peek out at her from behind his fingers. “Old elvish is tricky to translate, even for elven scholars. That’s why nowadays almost everything is written in the common tongue.”

“Oh.” Relief blooms softly behind Callum’s ribs. Rayla’s gentle teasing and the softness in her pale lavender eyes quickly douse the heat of embarrassment from his cheeks. And, for a moment, the young primal mage is content to watch as the Moonshadow elf’s fingers return to fiddle with her half tied braid. A stiff, half-smile twitches at the corner of his mouth. One side tilting upwards in a lop-sided way, still not quite relaxed enough after his translation faux pas for a completely genuine smile as he watches how Rayla’s brows tug lower when she feels the sloppiness in her handiwork between her fingers. “So, then what I said, it wasn’t that bad, right?”

The frustration Rayla feels as she rakes her fingers through her twisted locks is mild at best. Quickly expelled in a single short puff as she untangles and shakes and smooths out the three sections again. Shifting her hips, she adjusts her posture and then settles once more as she begins folding each section of hair over one other in a slower and more deliberate pattern and pace. After a minute or two, she glances up at Callum, cocking her eyebrow at him coyly and sucking her tongue against her teeth thoughtfully.

“Well, that would depend on your human culture’s definition of _‘bad,’_ I guess.” She says, her voice lilting and playful even as the teasing smirk curves her lips again. “You weren’t actually giving _thanks_ to the Primals…” Her nose crinkles cutely and her ear tips pink rosily as her voice trembles under the laughter that is fighting to escape her lips as Callum sits frozen and staring in his seat, his mouth hanging slack and open as a fresh wave of mortification streaks across his nose. “Just count yourself lucky that no dragon or elf mage are present to _witness_ your butchering of both translations. I’m not sure if either your wings or my blades would be swift enough to save you from your now tattered dignity.”

Despite the burn in his cheeks and the bruising to his ego, Callum snickers quietly. “Well, maybe not the wings. But, I have every confidence that, assassin or not, you’d be quick enough to end me _before_ I could die of humiliation.”

“Well, yeah, I _could_ …” The smirk on Rayla’s lips is downright wicked, the subtle tilt of her head - playful. The corner of her mouth pushes up and her eyes narrow a fraction, and Callum recognizes the light dancing in the elf’s lavender irises as her mischievous side peeking out. “But why _would_ I, when watching you suffer would be oh, so much more fun?”

This banter, the way that he and Rayla easily bounce remarks between themselves like a rubber ball is familiar and comforting. He was never entirely certain if their teasings ever really grew wittier, but it was hard to deny that their chaotic conversations were anything short of entertaining for each other.

“How could you?!” Clasping his hands over his chest, Callum gasps. Overdramatic, he turns with a pout on his lips but merriment in his warm eyes. “You are a mean, wicked and cruel elf, Rayla.”

“The meanest.” She agrees, fondling the half-twisted braid a second time. “And yet, you love me.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

The flow of conversation, along with the next round of banter, dies in Callum’s throat as he watches her. Noticing how the light amusement on Rayla’s face suddenly sags into frustration. His gaze drifts over to her fingers, moving along the folded sections of her hair, feeling from the crown of her head and down to where her other hand pinches the half-formed plait tightly - finding the spots where she’d picked up random extra strands here and there from the loose cascade of silvery-white.

For a second time in just a few minutes, her fingers drag through the half-formed braid. Untying her work yet again. Callum half-smiles at her huffy eye-roll. His own face is relaxed and his eyes are soft and round. Their playful banter and gentle teasings having completed their objective in distracting him from his embarrassment over his translating mishap, and now the neophyte sky mage turns his focus to his grouchy elf as she sets her jaw at an uncomfortable angle.

“Rayla?” He pauses, waiting for the Moonshadow she-elf to peek over to him from beneath her thick lashes before he pushes himself to his feet. “Would it be weird if I-”

“Yes.”

Callum stops in his journey from his desk to the bed and frowns without any real heat behind his glare. The shortness of the word coupled with Rayla’s brusque accent catching him off-guard as it slices through his offer as sharply as either one of her butterfly blades. She hadn’t meant to come across so curtly, he knows that even without the apologetic look that she sends his way. But he does appreciate that she still offers a weak smile and mouths a simple ‘sorry’.

“You were quick off the mark with that refusal. Should I be offended?” Crossing the space between them quickly, Callum sidles onto the bed next to her. His mouth quirks into a lopsided slope when she refuses to meet his eye, even as he carefully untangles her fingers from her hair and brushes a kiss across her knuckles. “You didn’t even know what I was going to say.”

Keeping her eyes cast low and eyeing her hands as the human boy places them into her lap, Rayla shrugs. “You put yourself and weird in the same sentence.” She tries and fails to hide her grin when she feels Callum’s hands comb through her hair. Her eyes close unbidden and her body leans into the delicate touches, pressing herself into him like an affectionate Shadowpaw kitten. “You’re always weird. Super weird. It’s hardly some great insight that whatever you were about to ask would stay the course.”

“I would say that I’m hurt-” Callum murmurs. He tilts her head back a little before allowing his fingers to preen and detangle the messy kinks that Rayla’s own had hidden amongst the silken locks.

“-But we both know that your pride lacks that capacity.” Rayla’s lashes slide shut, and she’s practically purring under the shift and slide of her hair as it’s skillfully manipulated by Callum’s fingers. Though she does suppress a curious frown with a sudden shiver when the boy scoops and drapes the main body of her hair over her other shoulder. Careful to keep errant strands away from the section that he is rhythmically working. “What are you doing?”

“Braiding your hair.” He informs her. There’s a lilt to his voice that tells her without needing to look that he’s smiling fondly. “It looked as though it was giving you some trouble-” There’s another tone lurking beneath the fondness in his voice. Something akin to a chuckle as he adds teasingly. “It’s probably because of that missing fifth finger, y’know?”

“Pinko’s?” Rayla snorts and scoffs, feigning indignation but she keeps her eyes closed. Relishing in his touch and undivided attention. “You don’t need them. Four are enough to braid with. One finger for each piece and your thumbs to grip with. Easy.”

When Callum chuckles, low in his throat and so close to her ear, Rayla doesn’t bother to suppress her shivers. But she does sink her teeth into her bottom lip and swallows down a little squeak of surprise when something very lightly skims around the shell of her ear.

“Easy, huh?” His voice is quiet, dark and husky. It’s pitched the same way it had sounded when she had gripped him by his scarf and claimed his lips in their searing kiss atop the Ambler as they crossed the Midnight desert. That memory, his voice and the constant tracing of his fingertip against her twitching ear make her insides twist and flutter as though she’d swallowed a swarm of luna moths. “If it’s so easy then why were you frowning so hard? Seriously, you were giving Bait a run for his money over the title of Katolis’s biggest sourpuss with that expression.”

“Callum, I swear!” Rayla jerks suddenly. Ducking his fingers and crushing her over-sensitized ear against her shoulder to protect it from Callum’s incessant petting. She’s more than blushing. Her cheeks burn as though they’re on fire and she knows, without looking, that her human has that same smug look on his face that he always has when he thinks that he’s one-upped her.

And, when she finally has enough control over both her breathing and her faculties to aim a flat, unimpressed glare his way, she’s unsurprised to find the boy grinning widely at her. Clearly proud of his torment of her. And, as much as she wants to be angry with him for the teasing, she just can’t quite muster the energy to do so.

Until he leans in dangerously close to her still twitching ear and whispers, “It’s cute when your ears do that.” Before he presses a chaste kiss to her still warm cheek.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

She snorts and ducks his second kiss. Twisting and rolling until she’s sitting on her knees just barely out of Callum’s reach. “Oh, I really do.” She declares, flashing her teeth in a smile that’s equal parts teasing and seriousness as she raises a hand up to tick off the reasons as to her ire.

“First, you crudely insult my ancestral language. Secondly you, yet again, try to sell me on the whole five finger dealy - I happen to _like_ my hands and I _know_ you do.” The little flash of colour that tints Callum’s nose when he catches her arched eyebrow has her chuckling. It also softens her tone a fraction, allowing the playfulness to dominate her words. “And thirdly, you torture me and then compare me to the grumpiest glow toad I’ve ever met.”

Catching the subtle shift in her voice, Callum drops his kicked puppy expression and grins. Pushing himself onto his hands and knees he begins crawling closer. “How many glow toads _have_ you met, Rayla? You didn’t even know what he was!”

Rayla dismisses his question with a wave of her fingers. “That’s beside the point. Don’t change the subject!” She keeps her eyes trained on his cheerful face but makes no effort to try and flee his advances. She just watches him, confident in knowing that at any moment she could effortlessly roll herself onto the balls of her feet and run, leaving him with nothing but rumpled bedding and her residual heat as his prize. “Point is, you’re a mean, wicked and cruel human, Callum.”

“The meanest.” A Cheshire grin spreads over Callum’s face. Drawing the elf’s focus to his lips as he cheerfully parrots back to her, her own earlier sass. “And yet, you _fell_ for me.” 

It’s in that moment when Callum’s smile splits his face in two; his motives laid bare, that Rayla’s eyes widen and her thoughts suddenly catch up. She tries to throw herself backwards but there’s one hand already on her ankle and another around her calf, and that meant that something very bad was about to happen - or very good - depending on how her pride would later dissect the memory.

Callum yanks and Rayla shrieks.

She topples backwards as he pulls toward him. His eyes are greedy as they fall upon the flat plane of her belly and the sharp cut of her hip, just barely exposed as her loose sleepwear rides up a little higher away from their proper positioning. Soft fabric yields to the drag against the coarser comforter and blankets bunch up beneath her head and tangle around her horns as the elf slithers toward the human prince. Hauled to him by her limbs and laughing uncontrollably, Rayla grabs the hem of her shirt before it rides up over her ribs. Yanking it back down and holding it in place to preserve her modesty until she finds herself positioned half beneath Callum. Angled with her thighs pressed together and her hips tilted away toward the outside of his knee; so that when he lowers himself and shifts his grip from her legs to her sides and finally to her wrists, his hip lines up innocently alongside her narrow waist.

“Hey.” While his careful positioning is adorably chivalrous, his grin is positively shit-eating. 

“Hey, yourself.” Just by flexing her wrists, Rayla knows that she can easily break free. And, judging by the way that Callum’s eyes nervously flick upwards for a just moment, she knows that _he_ knows that she’s perfectly capable of escape too. “I suppose that you’re pretty pleased with yourself, Mage.”

His evergreen eyes shine in delight and adoration for her. Flattered as he always is whenever she calls him by his title, but the flattery also curls his grin into a devilish smile as he nuzzles against her jaw. “Why shouldn’t I be? You do realize that I just caught a highly-skilled, highly trained, former Moonshadow assassin with ease.”

“Maybe so, but only because _I_ let you.” She shivers against his breath curling around her neck. Wiggles half-heartedly against his grip until he retreats from the nuzzling and the pressing of his face into the crook of her neck to meet her gaze. “You and I both know that, if I wanted to, I’d be free and out of that window in a flash.”

“If you wanted?” He arches a single brow at her. “Do you want to?”

She shakes her head. “Not just yet.”

“What do you want?”

“For you to kiss me.” 

At the first touch, Callum sighs against her lips. With the second, he releases his grip on Rayla’s wrists and brings his hands down to cradle the back of her head. His breath hitches in his chest and he instantly deepens the kiss as soon as he feels Rayla tangling her fingers in his hair, guiding the tilt of his head and the way that their lips fit together. He can feel the way that her lips curl under his and wonders if she can taste the way his heart flutters and throbs in the back of his throat. Wonders if she can feel the way that his pulse skips and twirls beneath her touches as he leans into her fingers and hums his approval against tender, kiss bitten lips.

Then, the gentle hands in his hair alter their pattern. Rather than simply combing her digits through the shaggy mop, she positions both behind his ear, allows the soft strands to languidly sift through her fingers a few times, smoothing out the tousled tangles. He can feel the soft smile beneath his widen. Can taste the low throaty chuckle that echoes his barely audible groan through the intimate contact when he feels her wrists begin to nimbly twist in an easy rhythm.

It’s a chuckle that becomes more a lilting giggle than anything - not that he’d ever dare suggest to the proud elf that she does, in fact, often giggle - Callum may be a fool but he’s not an idiot.

He barely notices when the kiss ends. The soft lips roaming his jaw just as satisfying. He does, however, startle when Rayla’s voice ghosts the shell of his ear. Her tone dark and sultry and just a little impish. “Told you I can braid hair just as well as you. And _without_ the extra fingers getting in the way.”

Immediately, Callum’s hand reaches up into his hair. Quickly finding the extravagant yet neat little twists that Rayla had skillfully worked into his short locks. Fiddling with the delicate and intricate braid as his cheeks flush a little warmer. “I… I…” He swallows thickly, the pads of his fingers still rubbing the braid between them until Rayla bats his fingers away before they can damage her delicate handiwork with their fussing. “I’m not sure it’s really my thing.”

He knows the pout that she turns on him is one she doesn’t mean. He can tell by the way that the corners of her mouth keep twitching upwards and how she doesn’t quite look him in the eye as she attempts to tuck the braid behind his ear, only for it to spring back and jut awkwardly from his scalp instead. “I like it,” She says quietly, and immediately Callum’s next protest shrivels on his tongue before he can voice it. She’s looking him in the eye now, and all he can see is the love and affection she holds for him. Such a far cry from the first time they’d caught each other’s gaze. With her standing over him, a butterfly blade at his throat and a hard edge of murderous intent darkening the gentle dusky lilac that he sees now.

“You do?”

Rayla lowers her gaze and nods. Suddenly hesitant and a little shy if the delicate blush across her nose and the adorable pinkening of her ear tips were any of indication. “I do.” She pauses, her teeth worrying at her lower lip as her brow puckers into a tiny frown, as though she’s choosing her next words carefully. “When I was small, my mother would braid my hair all the time. She’d tell me that each section represented one of us; me, her and my father. And braiding them together would keep us close even when we weren’t.”

Callum can feel how his heart squeezes in his chest. Can feel how sharing this memory with him, this little private part of her childhood, went deeper than her wanting to simply prove that she could braid hair. It was Rayla showing him her vulnerability. This was Rayla trying to share with him one little glimpse of the family life that she could barely remember herself. This was Rayla trying to bring him into her secretive little world, where it was okay for her to be herself. Gentle and devoted and soft. This was Rayla telling him, without making her step too far out of her comfort zone, that she thought of Callum as family.

Again Callum reaches up to fondle the little twists though, this time, he’s much more delicate with his handling. But it doesn’t stop him noticing how Rayla’s cheeks pinch in upset or from noticing how her ears droop just a little with sadness.

“If you really don’t like it, I can untie-”

“No!” Callum leans just out of Rayla’s reach. Dodging her touch as she reaches out to untangle the braid and smiling sheepishly at her startled expression as he gathers her hands in his. “No. It’s not… I don’t _not_ like it. It’s just… I didn’t...”

Her head tilts curiously to one side, a sceptical eyebrow curving high belying her misunderstanding. Callum sighs and smiles at her confusion. “I’m not explaining this very well, am I?”

Rayla snorts. “You’re not explaining it at all.” Her hands slip down his neck, trailing the pads of her fingers over his skin before she places her palms flat to gently push at his shoulders. Wordlessly indicating that she wished to sit up. “Get off of me, you great lummox. You’re heavy.”

Laughing lightly at the faux ire in her voice, Callum obeys. Rolling himself away from the prone elf to perch on the edge of the mattress, his feet pressing to the floor, watching over his shoulder as Rayla untangles her horns and gracefully extracts herself from the twisted sheets before she shuffles on her knees to sit next to him. She takes a moment settling herself, positioning herself so that her right shoulder is pressed to his right shoulder. Watching her own toes burrowing into the softness of the blankets as she draws her knees up against her belly and rests her head against the boy’s shoulder. “So, you want to give that explanation another shot?”

Callum sighs and leans his head atop hers. “It’s a human thing, so it’s going to sound so-” 

“Foolish? Petty?” Rayla turns her shoulders just enough to wrap both her arms around his one, snuggling deeper against his warmth. “Insecure and somehow related to how elves are savage, inhuman beasts?”

Though her voice dances teasingly, it’s small and doesn’t quite disguise the suggestion of her hurt feelings. Immediately Callum is flung back to that moment, drifting down the river away from the Banther lodge; aunt Amaya and her troops glaring after them and Rayla sitting with her hood up and back to him. The uncomfortable realisation that in telling his aunt that their elven companion would kill them and drink their blood, he had unintentionally reinforced human prejudice and offended someone who very quickly began to matter more to him than anyone else in the world.

And by letting human prejudice and assumption dictate his reaction to Rayla braiding his hair - something that very clearly meant something more meaningful in her culture, or maybe just to her - he had repeated that mistake.

He sighs again. “Foolish, petty and insecure, yes. Related to elven savagery, not so much.” He moves his hand atop Raylas knee, careful to avoid jostling her too much and earning himself a horn jab to his cheek. “It is something ignorant though.”

The Moonshadow elf scoffs, snorting her disapproval through her nose. “Figured as much.” 

“Braids aren’t really something that humans are used to seeing on boys.” It sounds so stupid, pathetic really, even to his own ears. But Callum forces himself to finish his explanation. “It’s seen as childish and unmanly. It’s something that is mostly only seen on very young girls.”

“Oh.”

“But, I _do_ like it,” Callum adds quickly. Ignoring the disbelieving side-eye that Rayla slides his way. “I like it because… because it _means_ something to you.”

“Thank you.” The smile that graces her lips is small, fragile, but it is there. Just barely peeking through her disappointment and it makes Callum’s heart soar. She understands and he loves her for it. Their conversations are always so much more than just words. It’s the smiles, the gentle shrugs and the playful light in their eyes.

Callum returns her gentle smile and, for a moment, both are content in just sharing the comfortable silence. Each simply elated to be in the company of the other, wrapped up in the sense of peace that comes from true friendship and feeling protected, with everything ultimately encompassed within the arms of purest love.

Then Callum’s eyes drop to the braid that he’d tied into Rayla’s locks, smooth and tucked neatly behind her ear. He presses a kiss against the root of it, enjoying her happy little hum before asking. “So, you wore it the night that you came here to honour your parents?”

Her lashes flicker against her cheek and she shakes her head. Careful of her pointed horns and the close proximity to the boy mage’s eye. “No. That one was tied by Ethari. So it symbolized my bond with him and Runaan. My guardian family.”

“Oh.” Callum swallows thickly. His heart is skipping around inside his chest like a panicked jack-rabbit. But he’s not scared. He’s not even nervous. He’s excited and curious and blurts his question suddenly. “So, because I tied this one for you, what does that mean?”

Rayla shifts again. Scooting closer to him, pushing herself deeper against his side if that was even possible. And he just _knows_ what it means, even before she says the words that confirm it. “My bond to you and Ez,” One arm unwraps from his and her hand finds his still on her knee. She fits her fingers between his, squeezes and whispers. “The family that chose me.”


End file.
